


isn't a hand just a hand?

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, i have not seen s2, mentions of canon levels of self harm, semi canon for s1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: She’s twelve, the first time. The first time Betty Cooper sunk her blunt, clear polished nails into the soft, pink flesh of her palms, she is twelve years old.(or five times people notice betty's hands, and the one person who never stops noticing)





	isn't a hand just a hand?

(zero)  
She’s twelve, the first time. The first time Betty Cooper sunk her blunt, clear polished nails into the soft, pink flesh of her palms, she is twelve years old. She was sitting on a chair at the dining room table, her mother and father lecturing her in tandem about her lackluster grade on a project. She’d gotten a B+. But she couldn’t cry, not in front of mom and dad. Last time she did that, they’d only yelled more. So she made a fist, small and tight, and clenches until she no longer feels the prick of tears, only blood in her palms. 

one.

Jughead was the first one to ever notice. Betty spent more time with Archie, but Jughead just paid more attention than Archie did. They were both thirteen, and they were sitting in the Cooper kitchen with Archie, working on some group project. Upstairs, they could all hear Alice Cooper yelling at Polly, and each time her voice got louder, Betty clenched her fists. From the corner of his eye, under cover of black curls and the brim of his beanie, Jughead watches, and frowns. But he didn’t say anything until Archie left to go home, and he was waiting alone with Betty for his mom to pick him up. 

“Betts.” he’d said, his voice quiet.

“What’s up, Juggie? Are you hungry?” Betty looked over at him, already starting to move towards the fridge. 

“No— Well, I mean, always, but that’s not what I mean. Your hands.” he frowned at her, pulled his chair out. Betty looked down, shrunk in on herself, bit her lip.

“It only happens when they get mad.” Betty said as she shrugged, holding her palms out for him to see. 

“Betty…” Jughead had frowned at her again, stumbling through his thoughts for something else to say, when a horn honked outside. His mom had come to get him. So instead of saying anything, he’d just squeezed both of her hands and run out the door. 

two.

Polly noticed second. Betty was still only thirteen, and Polly had been helping her with a homework assignment when Betty had dropped a pen. As she’d bent down to pick it up, Polly had grabbed her wrist and pulled Betty’s hand towards her. 

“Oh, Betty.” she’d said, frowning, and then wrapped her younger sister in a hug.

The next day, Betty had found a brand new tube of triple antibiotic in her vanity drawer.

three.

When Betty is fourteen, her mother finds the marks in her palms. Alice Cooper didn’t yell, she didn’t throw things. All she had done was pull Betty wordlessly through the house, into the bathroom, and pushed her onto the edge of the bathtub. While Betty silently cried, her mother had cut off each and every one of her nails, right down to the quick. Then her fingers were bleeding, as well as her palms.

four. 

Archie found out the same night her mother did. Betty hadn’t known what else to do, so she’d run to Archie’s house, right next door. 

He’d frowned, and given her a hug, and tried to tell his dad. She’d made him pinkie promise to never, ever tell anyone. 

“But Betty,” he’d said, frowning even deeper “this is like, really bad.”

“It’s fine.” she’d said, shaking her head. “See, I can’t even do it anymore, mom cut my nails”

She’d held up her hands, with her ragged cut nails flecked with puffy red skin and flecks of dried blood, and the half moon scars in her palms, still spotted with blood and bruising from earlier. 

“Do you need bandaids?” Archie had finally asked after a long silence. Betty had shaken her head. 

“It’s okay. I have some ointment at home.” 

“You should sleep here tonight.” Archie had said, frowning again and looking over into Betty’s bedroom window. “My dad would let you, I know he would.”

“My mother would never allow that, Archie.” Betty’d said gently, then patted her friend on the shoulder and walked back home, silent as a mouse, to cover her hands in antibiotic ointment and go to bed. 

five. 

Veronica and Betty were getting their apology mani-pedis when Veronica saw the scars on Betty’s palms. She was a good friend, and hadn’t said a word until they got back to Veronica’s apartment.

“B.” she’d said very seriously, sitting Betty down on her bed. “I need you to tell me why.” 

She’d pulled Betty’s palms into her own hands, and then pulled a pot of some kind of fancy balm from her bedside table, smoothing it over the fresh wounds and old scars. 

“Sometimes I just don’t know what else to do.” Betty had answered, shrugging and looking down at Veronica’s perfectly polished and filed burgundy fingernails against her own scarred palms and sighed. 

“It’s not good for you.” Veronica had smiled at Betty sadly, and pressed the tub of balm into her hands. “But you don’t need me to tell you that. You’re smart, B. But maybe call me, next time? Or somebody, at least. Jughead, or Archie.” 

“I will, V. Thank you, really.”

(six, and seven, and eight, and nine….)

He notices a second time. Of course he does. Jughead has always noticed her. Betty doesn’t know why she didn’t see it sooner. He kisses her hands, and then her palms, pulling her hands to his chest. She leans against his shoulder, savoring the warmth and safety of his chest, his arms, his heartbeat. He kisses her forehead. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner, Betts.” he whispers, lips against her ear, warming her hair.  
“Oh Juggie. You’re the first person who ever did.” she puts her hands on his face, rubbing the cut on his cheek delicately, and burrows her face into his neck.

After the night at the diner, Jughead starts finding ways to help her as often as he can. Whenever they’re together, he holds her hands in his, or pulls her arms around him, or gives her things to do or hold. He never makes a production of it, he never tells her “I’m trying to help you” and Betty is so, so grateful for that. 

She thinks he must be researching things, or something, because he starts bringing her stuff too. Little ‘just because’ gifts, but things that are clearly meant to help her busy her hands, keep her palms safe. A pair of soft pastel blue gloves. A nail file. Stress balls. A small stuffed snake. A tub of pink play-doh. Knitting needles and a ball of yarn. 

And whenever they’re alone, he kisses her palms, his lips soft and his breath warm, and his hands holding hers carefully, but not like she is something breakable, but simply something worthy of care. Someone worthy of care, even with all her scars and imperfections.

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'masochist' by ingrid michaelson! i'm new to this fandom, but bughead has me just smitten.


End file.
